


Crossroads

by devovitsuasartes



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Genre: M/M, Oliver pov, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 11:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13340778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovitsuasartes/pseuds/devovitsuasartes
Summary: That final phone call goes a little differently.





	Crossroads

"I do."

The words were glass-sharp and bitter, as though I had forced them out of him - though in truth it took me a moment to understand what he was responding to. Stupidly, I asked, "Do what?"

"Mind. I do mind that you're getting married."

I could hear his tinny, harsh breathing down the phone. I pressed it closer to my ear, felt a tightening in my chest. "Are you sad?" I asked, quietly. "Or are you pissed?"

"Either. Both. Whatever."

I closed my eyes, leaned back on the worn old couch that I'd dragged out of a dumpster when I was a poor undergraduate, and hadn't had the heart to throw out. In a small, honest voice, I told him, "I don't want you to be sad."

"What did you expect?" he asked, in clipped, carefully controlled tones, like a gutshot soldier valiantly trying to stay nonchalant, holding his spilled intestines in his hands. "You're getting married, so we'll never be together again. You're not a cheater."

He said it with such confidence, such assurance, like he knew me as well I knew myself. Maybe he did.

"This doesn't mean that I don't care about you," I murmured, like I was afraid of being overhead.

"No, it means you care about someone else more."

"Elio..."

"Well, it's true, isn't it?"

"It's complicated."

"So it's true."

"No, it's not true. Don't be childish." I regretted it as soon as I said it, but it was too late.

"Childish?" he echoed, and I could hear the anger now, breaking through. "You call me up to tell me you're getting married, that we'll never be together again, not ever, and you think it's _childish_ that I'm sad about it? What would be the mature response? You want me to plan your bachelor party?"

"I don't expect anything," I soothed, contrite. "I just... thought you deserved to know."

"Well. I know."

There was silence on the other end of the phone after that. I rubbed the heel of my hand against my eye. My head hurt. There was a pain just below my rib cage. All of a sudden I felt utterly miserable. I couldn't help but picture Elio in that big house, sitting in the hall next to the telephone, his expression crumpled and tight, maybe even crying. No, no, _no_.

"This is exactly what I didn't want," I told him, sadly. "God, I never wanted to hurt you. I care about you so much, Elio."

"Then don't get married."

The request instantly drew two warring reactions from me. The first was pure adoration, everything I had ever loved about Elio rushing to the foreground with that simple, bold, fearless demand that others would be too proud to make. The second was an ugly, black scorn and resentment that he would be so immature as to ask a betrothed man to call off his wedding. The arrogance. The selfishness. 

But all I said was, "Elio..."

"No, shut up. I spent weeks - _weeks_ \- not telling you how I really felt, so now you can sit there and listen, or you can hang up. I don't care. I'll keep talking even if you hang up."

I huffed a small laugh, despite my unhappiness. "I won't hang up."

"Good. Don't get married. Choose me instead."

I waited for more, but there was none. "Wow. I wouldn't even have had time to hang up."

"I'll be eighteen soon, an adult, just a couple more months. I'm already applying to colleges. I can apply to colleges near you. I don't care where I go, the only thing that matters is my music and I can do that anywhere. I can live with you, or get my own apartment if you need space. I don't mind. I only want to be with you."

I let out a patronizing sigh before I could help myself, and internally I was disgusted at my own response. Once again, Elio was laying his very soul bare to me, and I was backing off, hiding, hurting him to protect my ego. Coward. _Coward_.

"It's a nice idea," I said, feeling like an alien was controlling my mouth, making me say such quietly hateful things. "But that's all it is, Elio. A fantasy."

"What's so fantastical about two people who want to be together being together? I'm telling you how it could work. You're telling me it won't, but you won't say why."

"I'm _engaged_."

"So call it off."

"That's... God, Elio, don't you realize how much that would hurt her? Don't you care?"

"No, I don't care. I'm sure she's nice. If you're willing to marry her, she must be wonderful. But I don't know her, and I don't care about her. I only care about you."

"Elio..."

"Do you have a piano?"

The question caught me off-guard, derailed me. I laughed a little at the idea - at the extravagance of owning a piano when my apartment didn't even have room for a bathtub. "No."

"We could get one."

It was such a simple statement, but it took my breath away. It was ridiculous, I thought. There was no room for a piano here, no room at all, unless I got rid of that glass cabinet, maybe moved that chair. What are the dimensions of an upright piano, anyway? Would it fit along that wall?

Suddenly, I could picture it. As clearly as if he were already in the room with me. Waking up to the gentle notes of that song, the song that Bach wrote for his brother. Getting out of bed, walking through the door, seeing the morning sunlight filtering in, lighting up Elio's bare skin as he sat at the piano, straight-backed, head bowed, his fingers dancing over the keys, surrounded by my things - my books and my clutter. Leaning down and kissing his cheek. Feeling him smile in return, the music not faltering. Pouring him a glass of juice and feeding it to him, holding the glass against his lips so that he could drink without having to stop playing, then kissing the lingering sweetness of the juice from his mouth, kissing his neck, his head tilting obligingly...

It was a beautiful fantasy. As beautiful as it was absurd.

"You would make a good lawyer," I commented drily. "We've gone from you asking me to call off my wedding, to discussing where to put a piano in my apartment - all without me agreeing to a single thing."

"You don't have to agree to anything now," he said. "Do you have a pen and paper?"

I cast my eyes around, spotted the named tools on my desk, next to my disorganized pile of papers. "Yes."

"OK. I want you to write this down."

I was instinctively ready to shut him down, to lecture him, but it was such a simple request that to do so would be excessive. "Alright," I said, patiently, picking up a writing pad and a pen, settling back down on the couch, the pad on my knee. "I'm ready."

He rattled off an address, slowing down to spell the name of the street, repeating the zip code. "Read that back to me."

I obeyed, telling myself I was only humoring him.

"Good. That's the address for my home in the states - my parents' home. If you decide you want to be with me, you can write to me there."

"Elio..." I started, then stopped, a little shocked at how grief-stricken I sounded, how desperately unhappy, his name thick in my throat. The very notion of calling off the wedding, of taking up with a teenage lover, of bringing him ( _him!_ ) to dinner parties and family gatherings on my arm, was untenable. There was an idea of me here, of who I should become, and Elio did not fit anywhere in that picture. There was no room for him.

_And yet..._

"I miss you," I said at last, the words raw and unfiltered.

There was a hiss of static as he sighed down the phone. Then he said, quietly, "Elio." It took my breath away, even more so when he repeated it, like notes in a song: "Elio, Elio, Elio, Elio, Elio..."

"Oliver," I returned, and it felt beautiful, and dangerous, and impossible, but I needed him to know. "I remember everything."

 


End file.
